This Week in Social Media: New Snapchat Stories, Twitter Photos Show in Stream, Google+ Cover Photo Changes and More!

This week in social media brought a variety of changes. Snapchat introduced stories recently while Twitter becomes more similar to Facebook with expanded content in streams. Google+ continues to make changes both in Google+ pages and Youtube. Facebook finally makes scheduling easier! Read on to see how these changes can affect you.

Snapchat recently introduced Snapchat Stories – a way to create a narrative from piecing snaps together and lives for 24 hours before disappearing.

Why does this matter?

For the most part, Snapchat doesn’t provide marketing opportunities. However, a New York yogurt shop launched a promotion that if you sent a picture of yourself tasting yogurt to their Snapchat account, they would send one back with a coupon from 16%-100% off. The catch? Since they disappear, customers had to open the snap when they were ready to redeem at the register. Read more about their Snapchat marketing strategy…

Twitter recently made the switch to show photos and video previews as expanded images instead of a link in streams – making it “easier for everyone to experience those moments” according to the Twitter blog.

How does this affect you?

This change is not welcomed by all users but is a huge opportunity for marketers. Followers will see your images so make them effective but remember the balance – don’t over-advertising.

Once again, Google+ has a new cover photo style. Before, a page only showed a portion of the cover photo and it was huge… The new design shows the full image with your personal information overlapping – check out our Google+ page.

Google+ changes the cover photo all the time, why does this matter?

With all social media sites changing and improving constantly, it’s important to check them all periodically to make sure everything looks okay. With Google+ this time, it’s a huge improvement and since your cover photo will be seen completely, make sure it’s a good one!

Facebook made it a little easier to schedule posts. It’s a minor change but comes in handy. Now you choose a date on a calendar then enter the time compared to having to choose the year, month, and day individually from a list.

Why is this a big deal?

This will save you a lot of time if you plan your Facebook posts ahead of time. Taking an hour a week to plan social media posts for the next week will save you time in the long run.

Powered by Google+, Youtube comments are now sorted by people you care about with those moved to the top. Additionally, you can now converse publicly or a private conversation to just a few people as well as moderate comments better with new tools to review comments.

How does this change anything?

With these new changes, relevant, appropriate comments will be brought to the top. You also have more control of who can comment – you should always be monitoring the feedback to your videos.

Stop by next time to see what’s new in social media. If you have any suggestions or comments, let us know!